The fictional suitcase

When the Fireflies Dance is set in Lahore, Pakistan and a significant challenge when writing it was to ensure the reader was able to place themselves in the setting. I wanted to be able to transport t

An old man lives at the bottom of my garden. His name is Robert Barkus, or Bakehouse, or Bagust. Nobody is quite sure. But I often sense him around when I’m gardening, and I’ve found out a fair bit ab

This month’s story, ‘The Surrogate’ by Tessa Hadley, is a study of two men through the eyes of one woman. The title suggests that one man is a surrogate for the other, but is it as simple as that? As

In the first part of our examination of The Building Block of Dialogue, we looked at how to build a Scene of Dialogue. A Scene of Dialogue contains the elements which supplement the words spoken by th

If you were to look back at a list of bestsellers over the last few years, there are a number of trends to be found – and one among them is the rise of the mythical retelling. The popularity of return

This year marks the publication of my eighth novel, The Time Hop Coffee Shop. Eight feels like quite an impressive number, especially when there were times I thought I’d never get a book published. I